7 months, 17 tours, 56 cooking classes, 144 guests and over 35,000 miles of Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio are behind us.  That was the 2008 season for us at Culture Discovery.  As with last year, after coming back to the US, I have gone into video mode.  Here is the first video I have made since coming back, which essentially sums up the season:

What a wild ride it was.   It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work…. but always very rewarding.  Most of all, we made a ton of new friends and had the opportunity to share something we love with so many new people.

Some new stuff in 2008…

We started the year unexpectedly using our ‘old’ kitchen down at the villa. We had started construction in September 2007 on a new 700 square foot kitchen, where the barn had once stood.  Our old kitchen was too small for us to comfortably do classes for more than 6 people at a time, so the new kitchen was a matter of urgency.  The new kitchen was supposed to be finished in April, but of course, we are in Italy. So in April we had a structure and nothing more.  It wasn’t finished until late July, so we had quite a few groups crowd into the old kitchen for a while.

The new kitchen, which Paola and I designed ourselves, came out even more beautiful than we imagined.  All of the counters are travertine marble, the sink is a solid carved block of travertine, all of the tiles are hand-painted, and the masonry for the separating wall and fireplace came out breathtakingly beautiful.  The large lighting fixtures and our 90-bottle wine rack (which we found ourselves restocking every 2 weeks) were all hand-crafted in iron; and everything was finished by local artisans.  What a pleasure it was to begin using it!

Besides the kitchen, this year we got sick of renting vans, and decided to buy a new one.  We headed to Germany and got a perfect 9-passenger Opel Vivaro that soon became lovingly known as ‘Shultz’.  When we have 8 or fewer people in a week, Shultz is always there to take care of us.

We started the season with five homes for our guests:  La Campana, Vecchio Forno, Ponticello, Chiosco, and Trinita.  By the end of the year, we added two new places, called ‘Caminetto’ and ‘Santa Maria’.  Santa Maria is perfect for our guests that don’t do well with hills, as it is just a few steps from Soriano’s Piazza.  It just went through a complete remodel, and makes for a beautiful place for up to four people.  Caminetto became available in August, so a good number of our 2008 guests had the opportunity to stay here.  It is the largest of the homes we offer, and boasts the largest terrace we have, with an amazing view out toward the Tiber Valley.

2008 also fostered some new relationships in Italy for our future guests.  During the season we began to take guests to a winery and olive mill near Orvieto called Madonna delle Macchie, which has proven to be so popular that we have built it into every week we offer in the future.  Moving into 2009, we will be offering our future guests the ability to actually rent part of the vineyard or olive orchard for their own personal wine and olive oil!

In April we met the incredibly gracious Prince Riccardo Nobile-Vitteleschi in the town of Labro, Umbria.  He lives in the 1,000 year old castle of his ancestors, and has personally taken our guests on tours of his ‘home’.  This has been so popular, that it is a staple for our 2009 itineraries now.

During the year, our travels through Tuscany and Umbria have brought us to new wineries, new monasteries, new restaurants, new towns… all of the more popular ones are in for next year, while the less popular are out.  So as I look at the 2009 calendar, I can honestly say I am VERY excited!

So to those of you reading this that were with us this season:  Thank you so much, it was a blast!  To those of you reading this that are still looking forward to your time with us, know this: I’m looking forward to it as much as you are!  We’re going to have a fantastic time.

Ask around Soriano about ‘Fosso Mulino’ (River Mill) and you will get mostly blank stares. So it is no surprise that after all of these years I had no idea that it existed. Very few people do.

One day I was out with my friend (and our contractor) Andrea D’Alessio. He asked me if I had ever been to the waterfalls. My immediate answer was YES! There is a place in Soriano with some beautiful waterfalls that few know about, and I had been there. In fact, years ago I was telling Paola about them, and she didn’t believe me until I showed her.

Anyhow, Andrea didn’t believe that I had been to ‘The waterfalls’, so he asked me to describe them. As I did, he laughed and simply explained that there were other, more breathtaking, waterfalls in Soriano. So he took me. He explained that not only was this a beautiful fork of the Tiber with awesome waterfalls, but there were the ruins of a 13th century Olive Mill. Cool!

We drove just past the Viterbo-Orte Superstrada, right at the Soriano-Bomarzo exit, and hung a left. We drove down a road which is well known as a hangout for some extremely vile looking prostitutes (another story there) and parked along a little dirt road. After exiting the car, we went down a small trail into what appeared to be complete nothingness.

At one point, I noticed beneath my feet there was some ancient concrete road, which was ribbed. Andrea explained that this was the path the mules used to cart the olives down, and the oil up.

Next I found myself in a tunnel of sorts, created by massive rocks around me, and extending about 200 feet down the hill. All the while, this ancient road ran beneath my feet.
After exiting the tunnel, immediately to my right was the river. As I walked toward it, I was struck by an absolutely beautiful set of waterfalls as I saw the water that had literally carved its passage through this ancient volcanic rock over millions of years. To say it was stunning would be an understatement.

We walked around as I cursed my lack of a spare battery for my camera. It had a little juice left in it, so I took what video I could. How could I never have known about this place?
As we crossed back to our entry point, there was an old structure in ruin. Andrea told me to look to my feet. There, sitting in the middle of this little forest was an ancient olive mill wheel. We then entered the structure, and a few more wheels were just lying there haphazardly. Wow! What a great experience to see all of this in such an untouched state.

Such was my morning visit to what I now know of as ‘Fosso Mulino’. You won’t find it in any tour books, and you won’t find any ‘professional’ guides that can show it to you. It is just one of those hidden treasures, like Corviano, that you just have to be with the right person to see.

I’m pretty sure I will make this a tour stop with my groups that are into nature and hiking.

For those of you that will be coming to Soriano for the Chestnut Festival, I thought I would post a video that shows a few of the highlights.  This video is a promotional piece by Soriano nel Cimino’s Medieval Swordsmen.  While they perform at many festivals all over the world, being from Soriano, they perform at each and every festival in the town.

This video concentrates on them, but many of the video clips are taken during the Chestnut Festival (Sagra delle Castagne) over the years.   Enjoy!

The 40th Annual Chestnut Festival (Sagra delle Castagne) Schedule – 2007

Every year, during the first two weeks of October, Soriano nel Cimino hosts a festival that surrounds the chestnut harvest. This festival is done on a large scale, and attracts thousands of people from surrounding areas, including Rome. The two main events of the Sagra are the Palio and the Corteo Storico. Unfortunately, we don’t know which days these will be held until shortly before the festival. That said, the schedule for 2007 has been released, so here it is:

Throughout the festival, the 4 taverns will open every evening, and will be giving away free roasted chestnuts to all.

The festival was not at all what I had expected.  I honestly thought that it would be a cute little festival with a few nights of music, headed by some local Italian jazz musicians.  Instead, it turned out to be a major International event.  

Roughly 1,400 musicians from across the globe appeared in a series of concerts every night for nearly a full month.  Some were young musicians that came to learn in the workshops or participate in competition for the Jimmy Woode prize, and some were seasoned jazz musicians that saw this as a truly international event.  Some of the bigger names included Jimmy Woode’s daughter, Shawnn Monteiro, Benny Golson, Joey De Francesco, Jimmy Cobb, Buster Williams, George Cables, Bobby Durham, Jesse Davis, Giorgio Rosciglione, Gegè Munari, Eddy Palermo, Piero Odorici, Massimo Faraò and John Kinnison.
Aside from the nightly concerts, every night after midnight, Soriano’s Rotezzia Pub, a large pub that is made from a series of connecting grottos and caverns, would host the nightly jam sessions.  Here, artists would get up and perform at random until daybreak every night. 

In all, it is said that 70,000 spectators came to Soriano for the concerts.  In fact, Soriano reached critical mass by the second week, when there were no more rooms available and people were renting spare bedrooms out of desperation.  Word to the wise:  Reserve early if you plan to attend in 2008.

The festival built up to a single ‘main event’ night one Saturday, when Soriano hosted its ‘Notte Bianca’  (White Night).  On this night, all stores were open until 5:00 AM, street vendors were out all night, several outdoor taverns were erected to serve grilled sausages, pasta, etc., and six stages were setup all over town to host an all-night event with 40 concerts. 

All in all, this was by far the most impressive event I have ever seen in Soriano.  I’m already counting the days till next year’s festival….  It was a huge success, and will be here for at least the next five years.

A tradition in Italy during Christmas time is the living manger.  Many towns go way beyond a simple manger scene, and produce a full scale reproduction of Bethlehem.   What makes it so special in many cases, is that they have the landscape and existing structures to really make it look and feel real.

Living Manger in Italy

Some towns do a better job, and others fail by comparison.  This holiday season, there are at least 15 towns doing it, and each one competes with the others to be the best.  Last year I saw the manger at the nearby town of Bassano, and thought it couldn’t possibly be outdone.  However, many people had told me that the one produced in Chia (a suburb or Soriano) is by far the best there was.

I was skeptical.  After all, the people of Soriano would naturally favor the living manger in their own suburb, and Chia is small beyond small.  How good can it be?  Still, this year I decided to check it out.

I went to Chia on December 26, thinking I really wanted to go back to Bassano.  When I stepped into their version of Jesus’ Bethlehem, I was awestruck. They had taken an area of town that was full of babbling brooks, caves, huge rock formations, etc. and literally constructed a massive production.  There must have been 500 people in full dress, each doing their unique job:  Roman soldiers, Carpenters, Blacksmiths, Baket weavers, etc. I felt as though I had been transported 2,000 years back in time.

It was so amazing, that I believe a trip from the states just to see this would be worth it.

I’ve been here for 5 days now and have had no time to write as I have been so busy working on our apartments.  However, yesterday I took my cousin to see Rome.  After all, she has never been to Italy and it is less than an hour away from our house. 

Lining Up in St Peters Square

It’s late October… we are pressing hard on low season here, but Rome was flooded with tourists.  As we walked down the streets, all we heard was English and German.  Every time we got near an ‘attraction’, it felt like we were at Disneyland on a Saturday in June.  The line to get into St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican consisted of tens of thousands of people.  Everywhere we went was crowded beyond belief.  You just couldn’t enjoy a thing, and this is LATE OCTOBER!  Ugh!

The Trevi Fountain obscured by Junk Souvenirs

The tourist trap stands were out in force, and since it was raining a little on and off, there were armies of people trying to force umbrellas on us.  Do people actually buy plastic St. Peter’s

snow globes?  I mean, where do they put this stuff when the get home, anyway? 

 It was all just over the top.  Maybe I was just tired, but it really showed what i always say about the touristy areas of Italy:  They were once beautiful places, but have been destroyed by the ravages of mass tourism.  The real Italy… the experience that really leaves you wanting to come back over and over… can only be found in the villages outside the cities.

Home Sweet Home

As we left Rome last night, a sense of relief swept my body.  The closer I got to home, the better I felt.  I got home, went to bed, and woke up at sunrise.  I made my coffee and went outside.  After snapping pictures of the tourist traps of Rome all day yesterday, I couln’t help but snap a picture of the Alto Lazio and Umbria countryside at dawn from my house… such a contrast.  No plastic towers of Pisa here.  Just nature, peace and quiet.  Ahhhhhh.